Anne McCaffrey - Acorna 4 - Acorna's World

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Acorna's World

by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Published circa 1999/2000

One

Roughly six 'weeks after she had joined the crew of the Condor, flagship of

Becker Interplanetary -SLmRecycling and Salvage Enterprises, Ltd., Acorna sat

on "salvage watch" at the helm of the ship, surrounded by the softly glowing

console lights in the cockpit and the billions of stars beyond. She felt

contented, almost as if she were once more home-back in the first home she

could really remember, the mining ship she had shared with her adopted uncles.

Behind her for the moment were the intricacies of Linyaari society and

culture. Before her instead were the intricacies of the universe as recorded

in the notes, tapes, and files of Captain Jonas Becker and his illustrious

parent, astrophysicist and salvage magnate Theophilus Becker.

To give herself something to do during the long watch, she was charting those

notations methodically so that the planets, moons, wormholes, black holes,

"pleated" space, "black water" space, and other locations visited by the

Beckers could be easily relocated, and the sites where they had once been

could be revisited if the need arose.

Becker had grumbled at first when she started this chore. Since the death of

his adoptive father, Theophilus Becker, from whom he had inherited both the

ConSor and the salvage business, Jonas Becker had been lord and master of the

Condor, with only Roadkill (or RK for short) the huge Makahomian Temple Cat he

had rescued from a wreck, for company. Becker didn't like his belongings

tampered with or moved. But Acorna had found plenty of evidence that RK

periodically made nests out of the hard copies of the notes, often shredded

them when he felt the urge, and, in a few sorry instances, had added his own

personal ( and remarkably pungent ) contributions to them when he was

displeased with the state of his shipboard toilet. Though she could easily

eradicate the odor and the stains, nothing could make the shredded notes

legible again. It was high time someone charted the notes before RK had his

way with the lot of them. After a few "reasonable discussions," Jonas had

stopped grumbling and let Acorna get on with her task.

At first RK had stayed at the helm to assist Acorna with her job, but later

had wandered off in search of food or a sleeping companion, probably Aari, the

only crew member other than Becker currently aboard.

Like Acorna, Aari was Linyaari, a race of humanoid people -with equine and

alicorn characteristics (including a flowing, curly mane and feathery hair

from ankle to knee, feet with two hard toes each, and three-fingered hands

with one knuckle on each digit instead of two. The most striking

characteristic of the Linyaari, to humans anyway, was the shining spiral horn

located in the center of their foreheads. But in Aari's case, the horn had

been forcibly removed during tortures he'd suffered while he was a prisoner of

voracious bug-like aliens) the Khieevi. While Aari's other wounds had been

healed on narhiiVhiliinyar, the world to which the Linyaari had fled when the

Khieevi had invaded their original homeworld Vhiliinyar, Aari's horn had not

regenerated.

This was an appalling wound for a Linyaari. A Linyaari's horn had amazing

(almost magical, even) properties. The horns had the ability to purify

anything-including air and water and food, to heal the sick, and also acted to

some extent as an antenna for psychic communications among the Linyaari.

Acorna had learned a great deal more about the powers of her horn and about

her people when she had returned with a Linyaari delegation to

narhii-Vhiliinyar. Unfortunately, once she had arrived, her aunt and two other

shipmates had been dispatched into space again to deal with an emergency, and

Acorna had been left among strangers to try to adjust to her native culture, a

culture she'd left behind while she was still a baby.

Her only two real friends on narhii-Vhiliinyar had been the eldest elder of

the Linyaari people, Grandam Naadiina, and Maati, a little girl -who was the

viizaar's messenger and the orphaned younger sister of Aari.

When Becker had made his unauthorized landing on narhiiVhiliinyar to return

Aari and all the bones from the Linyaari graveyard to the new Linyaari home

planet, Acorna, Grandam, and Maati had been in the greeting committee. Aari at

that time had still been terribly deformed from his ordeal with the Khieevi,

and the viizaar Liriili and some of the less sensitive and compassionate

Linyaari had not made his return easy.

Acorna, perhaps because her own loneliness had helped her identify with his,

had been drawn to Aari. When an emergency signal had called Becker away from

narhii-Vhiliinyar, Acorna and Aari had shipped out with him. They had been

able to help in a crisis that had threatened some of Acorna's human friends as

well as the Linyaari. As a result of their intervention, a branch of a

Federation-wide criminal organization had been destroyed and many off-planet

Linyaari, including Acorna's beloved aunt, had been rescued, along with all

the other captives of the criminals. Acorna, Becker, Aari, and Acorna's Uncle

Hafiz, who had also been on hand for the rescue, were now in great favor among

her people.

Acorna could have stayed comfortably on narhii-Vhiliinyar once her aunt and

the other ship-bred and ship-chosen Linyaari returned to the planet. But she

had decided instead to leave with Becker and Aari.

She wasn't sorry. She might have been born on a peaceful planet populated by

beings who had the ability to understand one another telepathically, but her

upbringing had made her different, and that was sometimes a problem, both for

her and for her people. Space was familiar to her, and its diversity of races,

species, and personalities stimulated her. Of course, right now, just being

here, quietly charting coordinates, resting her eyes by watching the stars,

wasn't very stimulating, but the serene surroundings felt wonderful. She was

comforted by the routine watch, at peace with the universe.

Perhaps, she thought, happily ever after, the permanent version, only happened

in fairy tale, bat happy every once in a while wa^ r&ftful ane) healing.

The cabin lights flicked on, bringing the harsh light of the day shift to her

starlit world. She blinked a few times until her eyes adjusted.

"Yo, Princess!" Becker said. "Your watch is over. Whatsa matter with you

sitting there typing in the dark? You'll ruin your eyes that way, didn't

anybody ever tell you?"

He strode up to stand behind her, peering over her shoulder so intently his

brushy mustache, which closely resembled RK's ruff, brushed her horn. Becker

smelled strongly of the aftershave he had begun to use about the time he began

to shave again, shortly after she arrived. It wasn't that he was trying to

impress her in a courtship. and mating fashion, she knew. It was simply a

rather old-fashioned, by human standards, sign of gender acknowledgment and

respect. "Hey, now, how about that? You've charted the whole journey from the

time we left narhii-Vhiliinyar the first time, to that moon where Ganoosh and

Ikwaskwan held your people captive, and all the way back again! I figured,

with all the excitement we ran into, and all the hopping around we had to do,

nobody would ever be able to figure that one out. How'd you 2o that?"

"You kept good notes, Captain," she said, smiling.

"Well, it's terrific! And you did it so fast, too. Where'd a sweet young thing

like you learn that?"

"Elementary, my dear Becker," Aari said, sauntering up behind the captain and

towering over him. Tall, slender, and graceful now that his injuries had

healed, Aari -was whiteskinned and silver-maned. These were traits he shared

with Acorna and the other Linyaari space travelers.

Aari had been reading a trashed-out copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

lately. Becker and Acorna could see the immediate result of his current

venture into fiction in the -way that Aari had layered two baseball caps from

Becker's collection, so that the bill of one hat stuck out in back above his

long silver mane, the other in the front. It was not only a pretty good

imitation of a traditional deerstalker, but the hat covered the indentation in

Aari's forehead where his horn had once been. Aari also clutched a Makahomian

ceremonial pipe between his teeth. It was a bit longer than an antique

meerschaum, but with Aari's height, he could carry it off. The Holmesian

effect was only spoiled by the RECYCLER'S RONDY '84 logo on the front of the

cap facing them, along with an embroidered trash container rampant beneath the

lettering.

"Space-bred and space-chosen Linyaari," Aari said, "develop a heightened sense

of navigational interrelationships between space and masses, even energy

fluctuations. Many of those relationships are imprinted telepathically upon

our brains by our parents when we're young. That is partially how I was able

to guide you to narhii-Vhiliinyar though I had never been there myself."

"Hmm," Becker said, surveying his shipmate's latest odd outfit. "You make me

wonder if my old man might not have been part Linyaari. You're sure finding

your way to the planet wasn't simple deduction?"

Aari looked puzzled. "No, Joh. We do not use footprints, types of mud, or

tobacco ashes to do this thing. It is a matter of the mind."

"Must be," Becker said. "Acorna's indicated the wormholes and black space with

a precision that you don't see on regular charts, given the instability of the

features being charted and the dangers of getting close enough to map them

thoroughly. Even got the whole wormhole system we ducked back through to blast

Ganoosh and Ikwaskwan to kingdom come."

Acorna glanced up from her charting and shrugged. "We were there. The

notations of the holes and folds are roughed out in your notes, and made

precise in my mind." She paused to consider something else Jonah had said.

"About your father-he is probably not part Linyaari. I do not think it is

possible for our two species to interbreed. In the pictures you have shown me

of your father, he certainly doesn't look Linyaari, though I will admit his

intuition about such matters as spatial relationships, as well as yours, seems

to me to be similar to some of the psychic abilities our race possesses. I can

certainly understand that, lacking a crew and managing all phases of your

operation alone, as you do now and as your father did •when you were a child,

you did not take the time to properly collate and chart your observations.

But, frankly, only psychic ability would explain how you were ever able to

find anything in this chaos." Her spread hands took in the mounds of papers,

chips, and recorded tapes scattered around the console.

"I usually know which pile or computer file to access for what I need," Becker

protested. "At least, I did once," he muttered. Then he added graciously, "But

I'm sure it'll be helpful to have it all nice and orderly."

Roadkill jumped up on one of the piles of hardcopy and sent the papers into an

avalanche that slid clear across the deck.

"RK, you silly cat, you already had your chance at these," Acorna said, madly

grabbing for the flying papers.

The cat chased the furthest sheets until they settled to the floor, pounced

upon one and shredded it with his back feet, then abruptly lost interest and

began washing his brindled belly instead.

Acorna bent down and shuffled the papers, somewhat the worse for wear, back

into order.

"I'm pleased you approve, Captain. The task needed doing and it keeps me

productively occupied."

"Yeah, I guess you must have been pretty bored after you reprogrammed that

junked replicator I had in Cargo Hold Two to make all my favorite dishes, so I

wouldn't have to eat cat food when I got busy, and after you and Aari turned

Deck Three into a hydroponics garden for your own noshing needs, while you

meantime inventoried and catalogued all my remaining salvage."

"It was not so much, Captain. It's not as if I am new to this sort of thing. I

used to replicate food and help grow my own meals when my uncles and I lived

aboard our mining ship. I also catalogued our specimens and assisted with

charting. I like to be helpful."

"No kidding! Between you and KEN," he said, referring to the all-purpose

KEN-6^0 android unit that they had acquired, more or less by accident, during

the Condor's last voyage, "the way he keeps the ship soooo-"

"Shipshape, Joh?" Aari offered. "I have been reading the nautical works of

Robert Louis Stevenson, and that term is employed to describe a flawlessly

maintained vessel."

"Yeah, what you said," Becker agreed. "Between you two and Aari, I could take

up knitting or basket weaving in the spare time I got these days."

"A very good idea, Joh," Aari said. "You have some excellent references on

crocheting, beadwork, handweaving, pottery making, and origami, as well."

"You should know, buddy. I'm glad you've been getting so much out of the pile

of old books I found in that landfill, not to mention the vid collection. But

let me "warn you-steer clear of the do-it-yourself veterinary books." Becker

glanced down at RK who had one leg poised in the air and was looking up at him

with suspicious, wide, golden eyes. In a stage whisper Becker continued, "I

once tried some stuff out of one of those vet guides on the cat there. Bad

idea. Neither of us came out whole."

Aan looked puzzled. "Why would I read veterinary books, Joh? If 'Riidkyii'

"that was as close as Aari's Standard could come to pronouncing Roadkill's

name"becomes sick, Acorna could heal him. We have no need for the invasive

measures described in those books."

"Damn good thing, too," Becker huffed. "The problem with using invasive

measures on ol' Riidkyii is he can't get it straight •who's the invader and

-who is the invadee. We were both short a few bits of choice anatomy after

that little adventure. Luckily, Roadkill and I eventually got put back

together, courtesy of the Linyaan." He turned to Acorna and said, "While we're

on the subject, you know you're welcome to the library, too. Princess.

Anytime."

"Yes, Captain Becker, that is very kind of you, but I already accessed most of

the reading selections you have available during the time I lived with my

uncles and guardians. I was raised by humans unlike Aari, who had no previous

exposure to human culture until he met you. So I won't be using the books. The

vids are another matter. However, I regret very much that we have only vid

goggles available to view the films. It would be such fun if we could all view

them together."

Becker gave her a sly look from under his brushy eyebrows. Her psychic powers

had been increased while she lived among her own people, but she didn't need

them to know that he understood what she really meant. Teasing, he said, "Of

course, really, only two people oughta watch at a time because somebody should

be on salvage watch."

He knew that she wished to share the books and vids with Aari so that he

wouldn't spend quite so much time alone, and so that they would have something

to enjoy together. She blushed a little. "I simply thought it would be more

companionable."

"Yes, Joh," Aari said, "And, as far as salvage watch goes, you once performed

all the ship's duties alone, and your metabolism requires that you sleep for

long periods. You must have let the ship's computers take over occasionally

then. You could certainly do so now. I do not see the difficulty of sharing

these vids."

Becker chuckled and shook his head. "What is it with you guys? Mutiny? But,

okay, "we'11 keep an eye out for something we can convert to a full screen

setup for vids instead of the goggles."

"Thank you, Captain," Acorna said. She believed Aari would be much better off

if he didn't spend nearly all of his time on his own. He had spent years alone

in a cave on the deserted planet Vhiliinyar, hiding from the Khieevi who'd

tortured him, before Becker had found and rescued him. Aari hardly knew how to

speak to people anymore. And every time he disappeared while she was not on

'watch and Acorna decided to go to him to try to initiate a conversation,

Captain Becker always seemed to have some task he needed her assistance with

or some errand for her to run. RK, too, tried to deter her. His claws and

piercing cries could be quite eloquent, even to one who possessed no higher

understanding of cat language than vulnerable skin that could be spoken to

with fang and claw. She sensed her friends were possessed by some sort of male

protectiveness toward Aari. She was sure it -was not a reasoned response to

her actions, but she was hard-pressed to understand it. She meant her fellow

Linyaari no harm, and sought only to lead him to a deeper healing than had

been necessary with the wounded she had previously treated.

She was also as perplexed as she "was amused by Aari's "literary disguises,"

as Becker called them. They were funny and sad at the same time. As he adopted

the headdresses and costumes of various characters in the books and vids he

was exposed to, Aan looked less like a maimed Linyaari and more like an

interesting, if rather oddly dressed, human. Of course, she herself had at

times donned disguises that covered her horn and feet so that she could pass

for human, and it had been a useful skill. But in Aari's case, she sensed a

huge chasm of loss underlying his attempts to be someone else. It was as if he

no longer considered himself fully Linyaari. The horn transplant the doctors

had attempted on narhii-Vhiliinyar had not taken. A living horn transplant

from a close relative might be possible with a specimen from Maati when she

was older, but could not be attempted just yet while her horn -was still

growing. They'd have to wait until she'd reached full adulthood before they

could risk harvesting enough tissue for a successful transplant for Aari.

The com unit button lit and emitted a beep as Aari replaced the fallen papers

on the console, lifted RK to his shoulders, and headed back into the hold to

continue his reading.

"You get it, Acorna," Becker said. "It's probably for you anyway."

She flipped the toggle, fully expecting to hear the voice of either her aunt,

viife()haanye ferliii Neeva, checking to make sure she was all right, or that

of the viizaar Liriili, spouting yet another list of instructions and requests

that Acorna was to pass on to her contacts in the Federation in general and to

her Uncle Hafiz in particular.

Since the rescue of all the off-planet Linyaari spacefarers, ambassadors,

teachers, students, scientists, engineers, healers and their families, and the

subsequent return of those rescued to narhii-Vhiliinyar, just six weeks

before, big changes appeared to be taking place on the Linyaari world.

According to Neeva, the governing council had been in almost continuous

session, trying to decide if, when, and to what degree the Linyaari should end

their isolationist policy with regard to most of the galaxy, and whether they

should open trade alliances with Federation planets and companies.

The council had already unanimously decided on a most favored trade alliance

with House Harakamian, the empire Uncle Hafiz had recently handed over to his

nephew Rank Nadezda, one of Acorna's adopted uncles. The Linyaari hadn't yet

decided whether or not to allow House Harakamian vessels enter Linyaari space,

however. At this point, the majority of the council favored off-planet trading

at some mutually agreeable location. But that wasn't a unanimous view. Some of

the more progressive Linyaari space travelers even favored entering the

Federation. As they pointed out, isolation had failed to protect their people

from the Khieevi or from capture and mistreatment at the hands of Edacki

Ganoosh, the Kezdet robber baron. The vocal minority of the council felt that

knowledge of other civilizations, both friends and foes, was better protection

for a peaceful people like themselves than ignorance and isolation.

Since most of the Linyaari diplomatic corps was currently recovering from

their ordeal on narhii-Vhiliinyar, the council was entrusting all of the

Linyaari's initial overtures to the Federation to Acorna, who was a newly

appointed Linyaari ambassador and also, conveniently, Hafiz Harakamian and

Rafik Nadezda's adopted niece. The council completely ignored her

protestations that Becker did not intend to return immediately to federation

space, preferring for the moment to search for salvage in the galaxies

occupied by the Linyaari and their current trade allies, an area neither he

nor any other Federation-licensed salvage company had previously explored.

Acorna had passed on the Linyaari council's messages to Hafiz before his

flagship, the Sharazoi), departed from Linyaari space.

Hafiz's last message to the ConSor, and to Becker in particular, had been

suspiciously expansive and nonchalant.

"Of course, dear boy," Hafiz had said, "there is no need for you to hasten

your business on our account. By all means stay in this congenial universe.

Get acquainted. Find useful refuse. As long as Acorna is happy, her Aunt

Karina and her other uncles and I are content. We'll see each other soon

enough."

Perhaps Hafiz was really serious about retiring after all? In Acorna's

experience, it -was very unlike him to fail to seize a business opportunity by

the throat and milk it for all it was worth. If he wasn't retiring, he was

clearly up to something.

So she had reason to hear from many people of her acquaintance just at this

moment. But this time the corn unit surprised her. When a face appeared

briefly on the screen, it was not her aunt, or another Linyaari, or even the

wily Uncle Hafiz. Instead, a heavily bovine face was being transmitted, male

and jowly with a curving brownish horn above each ear. It spoke in a language

Acorna didn't understand, so she reached for Aari's LAANYE, a Linyaari device

that collected samples of unknown languages, analyzed them, then served as

both a translator and a sleep-learning device to implant foreign languages

into the brain of anyone who wished to learn them. But the transmission

trailed off just as she got the machine activated.

According to the LAANYE, the last word the creature had said translated as

"Mayday" or "SOS" in Linyaari. The only other words she'd caught in the

transmission before the screen turned to white, crackling static were

"Niriian" and "Hamgaan)." She did recognize the race of the creature who'd

appeared on her com screen. He "was from the planet Nirii-the Niriians "were

regular trading partners of the Linyaari. Acorna scanned the frequencies,

trying to pick up the signal aeain, but to no avail. Becker put his hand over

hers and pointed. She followed his finger and saw that the screens of the

long-range scanners he used to detect possible salvage showed blips of white

light in several locations. One of them was backed by a mass of green light.

"There," he said. "There's a solid mass under that one. According to the

readout, it's a small planet with an oxygen-based atmosphere. If the ship was

seeking refuge, that would be the most likely place in this sector of space to

retreat to. Let's go see what we can find."

Acorna nodded. "Yes, I see what you mean. Given the direction of the signal's

probable source, it is likely that the salvage is the distressed vessel whose

broadcast we just received. The LAANYE translated the last word before the

message was interrupted to mean 'Mayday.' Possibly the signal we intercepted

was a general one sent as the ship's systems were failing during some sort of

accident or attack. I feel sure we received it only because we were within

range of their emergency transmitters. If the signal had been meant for us,

the broadcast would have been in Galactic Standard or in Linyaari."

Becker shrugged. "Yep. That's the way I've got it figured. Don't get your

hopes up, though. We're probably not going to find the cowboy who was

transmitting the mayday alive, or anybody else. None of those blips on the

scanners look like an intact ship. But we may be able to tell what got him

from the fragments. The time stamp on the message is a couple of days ago-if

the problem was indeed an attack instead of an accident, whatever nailed them

seems to be long gone."

So we will check the situation out and report exactly -what happened to the

Federation?" Acorna asked.

Yeah, eventually," Becker said. "But mostly -we'll know what to avoid

ourselves."

Intricately twisted vines and stems joined and twined, braided, knotted, and

separated before bursting into jewel-toned rainbows of richly hued blossoms,

reminding Acorna of pictures she had seen of the illustrated borders in Celtic

holy books from ancient Earth. Except that this vegetation was no mere border,

but a lush tropical jungle so interconnected that it was impossible to tell

where one plant stopped and the next began.

At first, the tangle of plant life looked impassible. She, Captain Becker, RK,

and Aari had stood on the lowered platform of the robolift, overwhelmed by the

sight of it. Becker was fingering the sharpened blade of his machete while

Aari held the portable scanner, waiting for it to indicate the hiding place of

the large piece of salvage that had shown up on the Condor's screen.

Acorna was busy cataloging the minerals and elements that made up this

planetoid. She had already notified the others that no breathing apparatus

would be required-the atmosphere was void of any substances lethal to

carbon-based life forms and far richer in oxygen than Kezdet or

narhii-Vhiliinyar, and the soil was as rich in nitrogen. Of course, that was

just her scientific opinion. In practice, once she was actually faced with it,

the air was so heavily scented with the aromas of the flowers it felt too

thick to breathe, laden with a heady mixture the like of which she had never

smelled before. She detected elements of the incenses that had perfumed Uncle

Hafiz's palace, like cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, and the kind of human cooking

known as baking, and also smells like mint, rose, violet, lavender, gardenia,

and lily of the valley, but all were much deeper and mixed together with new

scents-things she'd never smelled before. The end result was so intense that

it almost took on substance and color.

Captain Becker said the place reeked like a high-priced bawdy house, •which

seemed to please him. Aari had sniffed curiously. "I have no basis for

ascertaining the validity of your comparison, Joh, but I defer to your

knowledge of such matters." For their excursion dirtside, Aari had removed his

Holmesian baseball caps and pipe in favor of a colorful scarf tied around the

top of his head and a plaskin patch, inked black, over one of his eyes. Acorna

deduced, Watson-like, that he had been reading Treasure Inland and -was

assuming a piratical disguise in lieu of his Holmes persona. Though he was

giving the soil a very Holmesian inspection, what he could see of it from

where they stood.

Soil was clearly foremost in RK's mind, too. The ship's cat leaped off the

platform and hopped through the vines-which parted, almost as if the cat's

reputation had preceded him, to allow him to pass easily through them. The

roots and trailers along the ground seemed to shrink away as RK pawed the

soil, turned his back on his work, and deposited his own ecological

contribution to the planet.

Acorna started after the cat but Becker touched her arm and said, "Wait. Let

us see if he gets out again okay."

The cat pawed backward to cover his work but the vines and other ground cover

were already creeping back across the pile. Roadkill looked behind him, saw

that this -was happening, gave a little shake that could have been a cat's

version of a shrug, and bounded back through the path that had cleared for him

on his way in. He then hopped up onto the robolift platform and proceeded to

wash his whiskers, as if they had been somehow affected by his previous chore.

"Okay, then," Becker said.

"That way, Joh," Aari informed him after consulting the scanner, and pointed

in the direction from which the cat had just come.

"Well, then, onward." Becker raised the machete in one of the dramatic

gestures he was fond of and pointed. RK leaped to his shoulder and the four of

them dismounted the platform. As they set out, the jungle growth shrank even

further away this time, leaving a wide lane open before them. It gave Acorna

an odd feeling to see the plants moving and shifting out of their way. Becker

walked over to one side and raised the machete to hack at a thick stalk, but

the stalk bent in the middle to retreat from him.

"Wait, Captain," Acorna said. "The plants seem to be trying to accommodate us

by getting out of our way. It hardly seems right to cut them."

Becker gave her a look. "Yeah, well, we don't know how long it will take us to

find the ship. And we don't know what •wrecked it. We might be looking at the

cause of the trouble right now. How do we know these plants "won't close up

around the Coru)or and bury it so deep we -won't be able to get it loose

again? They're several stories high, after all. We -wouldn't even be able to

see the suns if they had decided not to part for us."

"I think 'decided' is a relevant term in this case," she said. "These plants

seem to have some kind of limited sentience, or at the very least the ability

to react quickly to stimuli. I think it might be wise to sheathe the machete.

Maybe we had better not make them angry. Besides, we could find the ship with

the portable scanner, couldn't we?"

"Yeah, but I always like to have a backup plan," Becker said, -while putting

the long knife away.

Aan dug in the pocket of his shipsuit and pulled out a ball of shining thread.

"I have just the thing, Joh." He tied one end to the robohft and held the rest

in his hand. "We can leave a trail behind us, like Theseus seeking the

Minotaur in the labyrinth. This also works very well in eaves when searching

for lost cascades of gold and jewels."

"Caskets, buddy," Becker said.

"As you wish," Aan agreed amiably, and began unrolling his ball of string.

"Ow," Becker said as his shoulder -was punctured by the claws of the suddenly

hyper-alert ship's cat, -who hunkered down and switched his brindled gray and

black tail, his ears perked and his eyes intently following the gleaming

thread as it unwound behind Aari. "Belay that, mister," Becker said.

The cat immediately leaped from Becker's shoulder to Aari's. "Aaargh," Aari

said, rolling his as instead of his rs. "Avast there! It is my faithful paro,

Pol."

RK made a dive for the thread. Acorna intercepted the cat and received a few

scratches for her trouble.

"I am sorry, Khornya," Aari said. "I think Riid-Kiiyi does not wish to be a

paro."

"It's all right," she said, cuddling RK up close to her body and scratching

him gently under the chin. He immediately abandoned his quest to play with the

string in favor of purring and rubbing the side of his face against her skin.

The small party set out into the jungle. The vegetation now made a path as

wide as the Coru)or, the stalks bending almost flat to avoid contact with the

people passing among them. The heady fragrance turned to an acrid stench.

"Sheesh," Becker said, holding his nose. "What are these, skunk vines?"

Acorna looked around. "No. They are the same sort of plants as the rest, but

see how the flowers are closing up and the scent they are emitting is

changing? It is as if they are afraid of us."

"Hmmm, well, it does smell like the last guy who tried to gyp me out of some

money he promised me," Becker admitted. He leaned closer to a stalk and the

stench grew stronger. "Joh, don't," Aari said.

"Just testing," Becker said. "Sony, plants. No harm intended."

Aari was busy unwinding twine with one hand and holding the scanner with the

other. "It should not be far now, Joh," he said. "The salvage is just ahead."

An opening in the canopy was visible before them, and Acorna saw a long

cylindrical pod lying among some twisted and charred stalks right in their

path.

Becker prodded it and turned it over. Beyond it, they could see other bits of

the downed ship visible among the stalks. Although there was nothing overtly

useful in the wreckage they could see, Becker decided he wanted to haul all of

the pieces back to the Condor. "We might be able to figure out why the

Niriians sent the mayday," he said. "Maybe find some clue to •who exactly they

were, what kind of trouble they were in, who attacked them." He scratched his

head. "Don't think that this is a normal part of my business, Acorna, because

it's not. Finding wrecked ships, yes, but not stumbling on the wreckage before

it's cold. And I have a funny feeling about this one."

"Me, too," Acorna said.

Aari looked up, surprised at their words. "I apologize, Joh, Khornya. I did

not realize that you had not understood the Hamgaar()'s, broadcast. I would

have translated it for you if I'd known."

"Hamgaarts?" Becker asked.

"That is the name of the Niriian ship that broadcast the message that brought

us here. Niriians have been trading partners of my people for many, many

years. Like us, they are a nonaggressive race. Before I-before my brother was

lost-I traveled on more than one trading mission to Nirii."

He turned away, stepping over nearer pieces of wreckage to retrieve others

farther from the ship.

Acorna noticed as she picked up the fragments of ship that they were sticky

with some reddish fluid. At first she thought it was blood, but then she saw

that it was actually more of a deep amber in color and far too transparent to

be either human or Linyaari blood. It was clearly the source of the acrid

smell they had noted earlier, and she wrinkled her nose. "Phew," she told

Becker. "This is what is causing the stink."

Becker looked more closely at the damaged vines all around them, gleaming

with redness that Acorna had not noticed in the plants nearer the ship. "I

think you're right. Look there. They're weeping this stuff."

Acorna looked. The redness ran down the stalks, pooled at the base of the

stems, and was slowly encroaching on the wreckage.

"We're going to have to give this stuff a good scrubbing," Becker said

disgustedly.

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Acorna'sWorldbyAnneMcCaffreyandElizabethAnnScarboroughPublishedcirca1999/2000OneRoughlysix'weeksaftershehadjoinedthecrewoftheCondor,flagshipofBeckerInterplanetary-SLmRecyclingandSalvageEnterprises,Ltd.,Acornasaton"salvagewatch"atthehelmoftheship,surroundedbythesoftlyglowingconsolelightsinthecockpita...

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Anne McCaffrey - Acorna 4 - Acorna's World

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